Xi Jinping: The ‘Boring’ Princeling Awaiting his Chance to Rule China

The secret diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks have revealed a portrait of Xi Jinping, China’s leader-in-waiting about whom little is known by the public. From the Daily Telegraph:

Until now, Mr Xi has remained a deeply mysterious figure. Chinese censors have been careful to delete almost all of his biographical detail from the record, even hushing up his former classmates and professors. No one can even be sure of his political allies within the Communist Party.

However, a detailed portrait of Mr Xi has now emerged which shows him to be “exceptionally ambitious” and to have had “his eye on the prize” of becoming China’s leader from “early adulthood”.

One disclosure suppressed from the official record book until now was that Mr Xi has been married twice.

His first wife was Ke Xiaoming, the daughter of a former Chinese ambassador to Britain, while his second is Peng Liyuan, a famous singer, with whom he has a daughter.

Hopes for greater reform of China’s political system in the next five years are quashed by descriptions of Mr Xi as a true “elitist” who believes that “dedicated and committed Communist Party leadership is the key to enduring social stability and national strength [in China]”.